Using PowerShell as the Visual Studio Developer Command Prompt

Overview

The Visual Studio Developer Command Prompt is a command window that loads up a bunch of useful environmental enhancements when it starts.  This let's you access things like sn.exe from your command window.  However, it loads up in cmd.exe and I prefer using PowerShell 'cos it's proper useful!  This article shows one way making PowerShell act like the Developer Command Prompt.

Adjust your PowerShell Profile

When PowerShell loads it looks for a profile file under your user profile and loads that if found.  By default, the profile file is:

\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1

Note that you can access your documents folder path from PowerShell like so:

$([environment]::getfolderpath("mydocuments")

If that file isn't there, create it, add the following code and save it:

Adjust the environment in the last line above according to your VS installation.

Load in PowerShell

Open up a new PowerShell window (existing windows will not have loaded the profile we've just saved).  Type sn and to show that you don't have access to sn.exe:

Then type As-VSPrompt and hit .  This will load up the Developer Command Prompt profile.  Type sn and again and you see sn.exe reporting for duty: